Review: Raise the Bar at Reignite Festival

Perhaps the central paradox of spoken word poetry relates to its perception as modern. How one of the oldest art forms on the planet continues to experience the benefit and scrutiny of this error is a less interesting story than what it has produced, which is a kind of old newness.

Upon arrival at The Station on Silver Street, the lavishly garlanded Christmas tree is soon joined on stage by Raise The Bar’s Saili Katebe, wearing his host-hat. For now. More on this later.

Katebe conducts the audience through various metrics of appreciation, inviting a shy splatter of applause to embolden into a communal ecstasy. The tone shifts momentarily as Katebe instructs the crowd that the event will tolerate no ‘isms’ – crediting us with the intelligence to deduce what those might be. He also warns against nudity, which is one of those rules you like to imagine is articulated now as a result of its one-time breach.

Donning briefly his so-called sacrificial poet hat, Katebe embraces the burden of being the first open-mic act, sparing any potential first-timer this bane of the performance world. The poem is alive with alliteration, and is performed with a quiet dignity. The final line “Carve your story into the storm”, manages to be both weighty and yet light enough to haunt the air for a beat or two before its dissipation.

The open mic kicks off in earnest and features an array of themes and styles. Spoken word can be extremely various, as fewer constraints are placed on artists than in other mediums. We’re treated to profundity “Don’t kill yourself with kindness”, provocation “When you can hear your footsteps walking beside you, what does that sound like?” and an elegant rewrite of Robert Seatter’s famed I Come From poem.

Open mic performer at Raise the Bar – photo: Alex Garbutt

The first featured act of the evening is Callum Wensley. They open with a comedy piece entitled In Which The Poet Personifies Rain And Tries Not To Be Too Sad About It, which charmingly weaves its way through a catalogue of familiar instances of rain arriving at precisely the time it is least welcome.

With a giggling audience firmly on-side, Wensley’s featured set transitions into the personal topics more commonly associated with the form. They mourn their late father in How To Build A Ghost, a poem so achingly beautiful and masterfully crafted that you begin to take Wensley’s comic personification of rain a little more seriously. Wensley’s work feels inevitable, necessary and tragic, like the rain. They remark that their father is fading “like a dream you didn’t write down” and I’m reminded that poetry at its best can marry agony with beauty more effectively than any other form.

Callum Wensley – photo: Alex Garbutt

The second featured act of the evening is Katebe collaborating with movement artist Deepraj Singh in a showcase performance of their devised piece Man In The Mirror. Multidisciplinary works boast an immediate textural intrigue which excite the suspicion that absolutely anything could be about to happen. The result is magnificent; Katebe and Singh cultivate a harmony which leads one to believe they are embodying separate translations of a shared essence. Singh is Katebe’s words physicalised; Katebe is Singh’s movements spoken. The work contends with the dichotomous nature of our psychology, offering courage and insight.

The joyous evening concludes with Malizah, whose featured set incorporates elements of hip-hop performed with an astonishing gravity. Malizah’s poise and composure are the first things to hit you, though these attributes are quickly superseded by artistic talent when the poetry begins. Malizah asks what it means to be free, and questions the concept of celebrity as “we are all born stars”. The poem Meek And On My Grind, an homage to rapper Meek Mill rife with allusion to his works, demonstrates capably Malizah’s ability to incorporate technical stylistic elements of hip-hop with a poetic groundedness and truth.

Raise The Bar has long been a staple of Bristol’s spoken word scene, and this evening it earned once more its place atop that mantle. Aged wisdom was delivered within modern syllabic patterning first established in hip-hop; the oldest poetic form of all filled a room with almost exclusively young people. Long may this happy contradiction endure, and long may spoken word poetry’s ancient chic grace our cobbled runways.

Reignite Creative Arts Festival is produced by Creative Youth Network at their city centre venue, The Station, Silver St, BS1 2AG on December 15-18. Tickets are available at www.creativeyouthnetwork.org.uk/pages/category/reignite.

Main photo: Alex Garbutt

Read more: Raise the Bar announce first show post-lockdown

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